About Last Night: Summitt Bids Farewell

In case you were out living a life of leisure, here’s what you missed in sports on Wednesday.

Legendary Tennessee women’s basketball coach Pat Summitt has stepped down after a long and brilliant career. “I’m just glad Pat and I can both call it quits after such a great and dignified lifetime in sports,” said Arkansas football coach Bobby Petrino. “With eight national titles between us and the eternal love and respect of our peers.” When he heard Petrino’s statement, Saints coach Sean Payton said, “Hey, I’m with you guys.”

Sources report that Texas catcher Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez will retire as a member of the Rangers on Monday. He’ll attend the game with his wife, Elena “Fudge” Rodriguez, and his two sons, Manuel “Sludge” Rodriguez and Felipe “Fatty Cakes” Rodriguez.

Zach Tomaselli, who accused Syracuse assistant coach Bernie Fine of molesting him a decade ago and then recanted his story, has changed his tune again and claimed that he was indeed molested. Stay tuned for further updates.

This just in: Zach Tomaselli has again recanted and claimed that he was never abused, but that Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim stole the idea of a 2-3 zone from his brain.

The NFL sent a stern message to Minnesota state leadership, saying that there would be severe consequences for the Vikings if they don’t pass a bill approving a new stadium. Maybe I’m being panicky here, but do you guys think the “severe consequences” include a public spanking of former Vikings coach Brad Childress? Because I really, really don’t want to see that. And now that I’m thinking about it, that’s probably not one of the consequences, right? It doesn’t seem like they’d ever do that. Hey, I’m going to go …

In first-round NHL playoff action, the Ottawa Senators topped the Rangers 3-2 in overtime to tie the series at two games apiece, Pittsburgh staved off elimination with a 10-3 win over the Flyers, and the Canucks avoided a sweep with a 3-1 win over the Kings. In case you were wondering, I believe it is now confirmed that the first round of the NHL playoffs is a never-ending looped event designed to confuse us about our place in the space-time continuum.

After a 100-68 loss to the Bulls, the Charlotte Bobcats are now five losses away from finishing with the worst record in NBA history. Charlotte is already planning to capitalize on the imminent publicity by releasing regional commercials featuring stunning glamour shots of the city’s 345 bank vaults.

Matt Cain (9 IP, 0 runs) and Cliff Lee (10 IP, 0 runs) engaged in the best pitching duel of 2012, and Melky Cabrera hit an RBI single in the 11th inning to give the Giants a 1-0 walk-off win over the Phillies. Interestingly, both Cain and Lee offered me $1,000 to keep Melky Cabrera’s name out of this item, saying it “sorta harshed the whole ‘pitcher’s duel’ vibe.”

With the SafeCo Field crowd at a record low (11,343, the lowest since the stadium opened in 1999), Jason Vargas struck out seven in seven innings as the Mariners beat the Indians 4-1. Time for a new feature: angry, ignorant rants about Seattle. Ahem. Only 11,000 people? Why am I not surprised? Maybe if SafeCo Field were a Keds factory with a hipster coffee shop and Che Guevara reading poetry, they could actually fill the place. Until then, every male between 20 and 40 will probably keep rolling around in their corduroy sheets and having sex dreams about their iPads. Seattle makes me sick.

Nyjer Morgan ignored a stop sign from his third base coach and tagged up on a Ryan Braun fly out to score the winning run as the Brewers beat the Dodgers in walk-off fashion for the second straight game, 3-2. Morgan then ignored the hug sign from his teammates as he sprinted out of the stadium, ignored a “spare some change?” sign held by a homeless man on the street, and was run over by a giant truck when he ignored a blinking “do not walk” sign at a crosswalk.

A quick reminder: This week’s Readers’ Revenge topic is Your Worst Experience in a Foreign Country. We’ve got a lot of strong e-mails so far, but perhaps a few spots on the top 10 are still open. Click that link for more information, and send your best stories to tobaccordblues@gmail.com by Sunday morning for a chance to make the list.

And a last note: this should have been obvious, but the quotes in About Last Night (including yesterday’s quote attributed to UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp), are entirely fictional. Please don’t take them seriously.